Dialogue with the customer has now also become a central marketing strategy in e-commerce. The unique opportunities presented by web analysis are the central driving force behind this, in addition to highly interactive online channels.
User responses can be captured in detail and evaluated with tracking tools such as Google Analytics, Piwik, and eTracker. Taking e-mail marketing as an example, failed attempts to send messages (i.e. bounces), opening rates, and click-through rates can be recorded to gain insight into users’ reading behavior. Current newsletter tools rely on tracking pixels; these are downloaded from the server when a commercial e-mail is opened, giving a clear indication of user interaction. It is important to note that data on reading behavior must be recorded separately from personal data, such as the e-mail address – by using pseudonyms, for example. This applies in all cases unless the recipient has expressly consented to personal tracking.
Thanks to web tracking, online advertising formats, such as content and display ads, can also provide marketing strategists with detailed information about the advertising campaign’s success. The biggest advertising companies bundle different websites into gigantic advertising networks, which are recorded by powerful ad servers using adverts. The data collected is then stored in a central location. This data includes information about which customers see which adverts, which ads are clicked on, and whether this leads to further interactions on the landing page. The data is used to create mostly anonymous user profiles and is evaluated in the context of behavioral targeting.
Thanks to web tracking, online business can benefit from a wide range of options for performance review, which are not available to advertisers working in offline channels. A/B testing is essential for the optimization of dialogue marketing tools and response elements. If you want to increase the open rate of your newsletter campaign, for example, A/B testing provides different versions of newsletters for advertisers to compare. It should be noted that, unlike multivariate testing (MVT), only one element is varied for each trial series, such as the e-mail subject, a link title in the main body text, or the typographic design.
In addition, the Internet has produced different communication channels that enable businesses to communicate with customers in real time on their own level. Many online merchants have now extended their arsenal of customer care platforms to include live chats and manage customer feedback via their social media profiles and moderated support forums, in addition to long-established customer hotlines.